Chasing Velma's Ghosts
by Velma in VA
Summary: When Daphne sweeps into town with a big announcement, Velma has to decide what kind of girl she really is. Shelma/Shaphne-mild language and dark suggestivity.


Velma was hard at work revising the penultimate chapter of her dissertation when she heard a knock on her office door.

"Come in," she called out, only half looking away from the screen of her laptop.

"Velm!" a voice exclaimed, sending sugary shockwaves throughout the broom-closet sized space. Startled but not surprised, Velma jerked around to face the shapely pink and purple figure in the door way.

"Hello, Daphne," Velma returned through a forced smile as she rose from her office chair.

Immediately, Velma was enveloped in girliness, both by Daphne herself and by the cloistering floral perfume she had clearly bathed in just before her arrival.

"Ooooh, I'm so glad to seeeeee you!" Daphne squealed. " The airport was a madhouse! And I had to sit next to this guy with a tattoo of a narwhal and he was telling me all about . . . ." Velma's attention to Daphne's words faded as she recalled the email she's received just two weeks earlier:

Hey girl!

I'm coming home week after next, and w/ HUGE news! You'll be sooooo excited for me lol! And I have a very important favor to ask! Flight info is attached (staying at the Radisson). Can't wait to see u!

Daph

With Daphne, all her news was huge, so Velma couldn't help but roll her eyes a little. Still, the "very important favor" part made Velma anxious, and she shifted her attention back to Daphne in real-time to make sure she wasn't missing any revelation.

". . . so I shoved him off me and said, 'What kind of girl do you think I am!' Can you believe it?"

"Unbelievable," Velma offered, hoping it would pass for the appropriate level of concern.

"Any-who," Daphne continued, leaning back on the desk, "Guess what? You are going to be so excited because I'm getting—"

CRASH! Just outside the office door, a cacophony of falling objects and pained yelps interrupted Daphne. Velma peaked her head outside the door just in time to see a jumble of arms, legs, Gucci suitcases and Prada bags tumble into a heap in the hallway.

"Shaggy!" Velma cried out as she rushed toward the wreckage.

"Hey, Velm," Shaggy managed as he extricated himself from the mound of luggage.

"What are you doing here?" Velma asked, but before Shaggy could answer, Daphne's voice rang out from behind them.

"We're getting married!" she announced, and she grabbed Velma again and forced her into an awkward embrace. Velma managed to pull back enough to find Shaggy's gaze, but he quickly glanced to the floor as he gulped, "Er—surprise?"

The next few moments were a blur for Velma. Dapnhe shrieked and squealed something about Hawaii, and Velma distinctly heard the words "Maid of Honor," but it was all she could do to remain upright with a fake smile plastered across her face. She tried a few times to look at Shaggy, but it was too much. He looked like a scared animal, afraid to speak or move.

Soon it was decided (by Daphne, of course) that they should all meet for dinner at the café across the street from the campus, and in just moments Shaggy was re-saddled with the suitcases and shopping bags and calling the elevator so Daphne could get to the hotel "to freshen up." As Daphne, Shaggy, and the bags boarded the elevator, Velma felt queasy and fought back the tears that tried to well up behind her glasses. When the doors closed, Velma fled back to her office, closing the door behind her.

As she sank to the floor, the sobs began to come in waves as she remembered all the moments she had let slip by: that night in the museum when they were solving the mystery of the Black Knight, that weekend at the Wetherby estate, the time the gang solved the mystery of the man from Mars at Funland . . . And now, he was marrying _Daphne_? And Daphne was marrying _him_? What the hell happened to Fred? And where the fuck was Scooby?

Frantically, Velma fished her last two Vicodin out of the bottom of her messenger bag, washing them down with a bitter swig of cold coffee (who knows how long it had been sitting there). She slammed shut her laptop, grabbed her keys, and headed down the stairwell to the parking garage and her '69 SuperBeetle.

_No! _she thought to herself. _I can't let this happen_. But what could she do? Daphne had always been richer, sexier, stronger . . . and Velma . . . well, jinkies, she was just dependable, intuitive, solve-the mystery Velma. How could she even compete with all that perfume and pretty and pink?

As she drove the narrow roads back to her apartment, though, a tiny sliver of a plan began to formulate in Velma's vast consciousness. All this time she had spent solving mysteries, she thought, didn't she have the skills to know all the tricks and traps of perfect villainy? If ever anyone could hatch the perfect crime, why shouldn't it be none other than Velma Dinkley? And what the hell had Daphne done to deserve to win all the time?

_Maybe_, Velma thought to herself, _maybe it's my turn_ . . .

TO BE CONTINUED . . . .


End file.
